Schnapps and Dumplings

Our neighbors invited Stick and me to lunch on Sunday. See how nice and normal that sounds?

Our neighbors are Manfred and Xuemei, a retired German and his Chinese wife. They are retired newlyweds, which is hilarious enough, because he’s seventy and the two of them seriously cannot keep apart.

Manfred doesn’t speak any English… or any Chinese, to Xuemei’s dismay and amusement. Stick was in Germany for 3 years in the military, so he can follow a lot of German, even if he can’t respond very well. Xuemei speaks decent German and a few phrases of English. Our conversation was hilarious, if not quite the relaxing Sunday afternoon we usually have.

The highlight may have been Xuemei telling me, in Chinese, that Stick and Manfred are useless menfolk because they won’t learn a second language! Haha!

No, the highlight was when Manfred asked Stick if I was some German word that sounds like steer. We had no idea what he was saying, so he had Xuemei ask me what my birth month is. I told her it was month 4, and she asked the day, and then asked do we call it something niu something? I finally caught on. “Oh, Taurus!” I laughed. “Yeah, I am! Wait… how did you know that?

No, I changed my mind. The highlight was Manfred telling Stick, via gestures, why he doesn’t like German girls.

Of course we had the universal language. Alcohol.

Eins, zwei, gambei!